Earlier this month, Clover added two new devices to their Point of Sale solutions, Clover Mini and Clover Mobile. As an early app developer for Clover, we are very excited about this launch because it opens new ways for businesses to use Waitlist Me for their waitlists and reservations. Clover Mobile is a perfect fit for Waitlist Me because it lets businesses add customers to the waitlist right at the door as well as update statuses and check people off the list from other parts of their store or restaurant.
Clover Mobile is a wireless device, so merchants can do a variety of activities from anywhere. They can place orders, take payments, scan inventory, manage employee hours, sync sales data with accounting software, and other activities from where it is most convenient. The Clover Mini is designed to be a simple but powerful replacement to the traditional credit card terminal, so it does the core credit card processing and receipt printing needed for payment transactions, plus a lot more. Both devices have the sleek designs Clover is known for and the flexibility of customizing functionality through their integrated App Market. Waitlist Me is available and optimized for both of the new devices.
POS terminals have changed over the course of several years, and Clover is at the forefront of creating better and more efficient hardware and solutions for businesses in this category. Because of the deeper integration Clover allows, Waitlist Me is able to offer more efficient tools for businesses and better experiences for their customers on the Clover platform.
Waitlist Me makes it simple to know the best place to seat your next customer. Our unique approach to section management blends psychology, data science, and cutting-edge design principles to create an intuitive tool that restaurant staff can pick up in a few minutes and enjoy using. See how it works in this video:
The old way of scribbling on a laminated floor plan with a grease pen is messy and inefficient. It’s hard to estimate wait times and optimize table assignments without seeing key information like how long tables have been occupied.
Most apps that try to use data to improve on the grease pen approach make the mistake of clinging to the old-fashioned floor map diagram, which is deceptively complex. Why? Searching the whole map for the information you need is slow. Comparing different clusters of shapes, colors, and symbols is complicated. And interpreting a bunch of unordered data, like little progress bars, spread across all the tables, is very difficult. To name a few reasons.
All this extra complexity is unnecessary. Wait staff shouldn’t need a map to find tables after a couple days on the job. What they need is a fair, easy, intuitive way to know where to seat the next customer.
Look how much simpler it is when you group tables into a framework where the data can work for you, and you can read key information naturally like a book, in ordered lines, from top to bottom and left to right.
Tables are grouped by sections, and sorted by availability to make comparisons and decisions simple. The open tables for each section stand out in green on the left. Tables that have been occupied the longest show first, with the time displayed in the lower left. So it is easy to do a quick scan within a section to see how busy it is, as well as compare across sections.
Tapping on a table will bring up an action bar for adding customers to tables, clearing tables when done, changing table statuses, and more. This page has a good overview and video of the other table management features.
If you organize your tables and sections differently by day or time, Waitlist Me also gives you the flexibility to switch between different layouts. For example, you might divide tables into 6 sections for a busy weekend night, but only need 3 for a regular weekday night. By tapping on the Layouts link in the top right, you can choose from among your saved layouts and regroup your tables and sections on the fly.
Creating and editing sections layouts can be done in the app settings under Manage Assignments. There you can also choose to have different colors represent different sections or special tables within a section or layout as well.
With Waitlist Me’s table management features, your customers will get better service, with less waiting. Your employees will get their fair share of the work, and the tips. And you’ll have a more efficient restaurant, and a more profitable business.
Stop struggling with floor maps. Take control of your tables, and your business, with Waitlist Me.
Building on our launch of table section management features a few months ago, we have added some new features to make it even easier to know where to seat the next customer. Labeled mode displays valuable activity metrics, section notes help you track servers covering each section, and additional waitlist integration makes it faster to do more from the table management screen. Here is a video that highlights some of these new features and shows more on how to set up your section and layout management strategies:
Labeled mode
In “Labeled” mode, you’ll also see additional details about each section. The “Open” metric shows the number of available tables as well as the total available seats at those tables. The “Filled” metric shows the percentage of seats occupied in a section along with the counts of the occupied and total seats. These key stats help make smarter decisions faster. For instance, when a group comes in that’s too big for one table, you can instantly see which sections have enough empty tables, with enough empty seats, to accommodate them. And you can also see how many of the seats in each section are filled, and ensure that each server gets their fair share of the work, not just their fair share of the tables. These metrics are also visible in the “Size” and “Status” sorts for seeing breakdowns of availability by table size or overall status.
Section Notes
You can add comments to each section—for instance, to identify who’s working where, or to leave a reminder about a special event. Just tap “Add Notes,” fill in your remarks, and then tap “Save.” Instead of having to set up complicated server scheduling or other section tracking processes, the notes feature lets you make updates faster and more naturally. It’s as easy as the common practice of writing server names on a laminated floor plan, but with all the advantages that our app has to offer for seeing real-time data, easily knowing where to seat the next customer, syncing information across devices, and more.
More Waitlist Integration
If you like working within the table management view of the app, it is nice to be able to assign customers from the waitlist, notify them their table is ready, and seat them at the table without having to switch back to the waitlist view. Now you can.
From the action bar, when you tap on add, you can choose someone who’s already on your waiting list, and serve them at that table, right now. If the table is already occupied, this removes the old party from the waitlist, and seats the new one, with one tap.
Or, if you’re not ready to seat them yet, you can just “assign” them to use that table next. If the new customer has stepped away, you can even make the assignment and also send them an SMS text message, asking them to come back. When they’re ready to take their seats, just tap on the table, and then tap “Next.”
You can also add a new customer by tapping a table. Just fill in their name, phone number, and other details. The table has already been selected, so you can go ahead and seat the customer right now, or add them to your waitlist, or even make a reservation, all in one place.
Quick Seating
When you aren’t crowded you probably seat customers at tables without taking their name. You can still track that the table is occupied and for how long by using the status button in the action bar. This makes it easy to keep track of your availability without having to create a customer for each table. You may want to start tracking your table availability at a certain time, like before it gets busy, and you can mark all your tables that are currently occupied all at once. Just press and hold on one table to use the multi-select feature, then tap on all the tables that are occupied, and then tap the status button to make them occupied.
If you had told me in January that 2020 was going to the year of a pandemic, that wearing a mask to the supermarket would be necessary, and we’d all be forced into quarantine for weeks on end, I would have laughed out loud. This year has been nothing but strange, I think we all agree on that, and as we begin to transition into “normalcy,” we are all curious as to what the new normal will look like. And as nerve wracking as it may be, I personally can say I am excited. I’m excited to see friends and family, I’m excited to go to the beach, and I’m most excited to get back to restaurants.
I’ve always had an immense passion and love for food, and as much as I love to cook, I am very over it. As cities and states begin to roll out their reopening plans, restaurants are opening their doors to customers for both patio and indoor dining options. But even as restrictions lift, there are still rules and regulations in place to keep both guests and staff safe, which I appreciate deeply. Although I am excited to sit with friends and enjoy a meal at my favorite places, I also want to ensure that we are being safe and remaining healthy.
My favorite restaurant might not look identical to pre Coronavirus times, nor are the rules in place going to be the same. But, as a guest, it’s important to respect and embrace these differences. My server will more than likely be wearing a mask, I may not be able to sit at a table with 10+ of my closest friends, and I may be asked to wait in my car, rather than at the bar, for my table. All of these changes are ok! I will survive! The restaurants are doing the best they can during a seriously challenging time and it’s important as guests to show up, show support, and show understanding.
The list of differences from past to present can go on and on, but I think focusing on the future and adapting to what many are calling the “new normal” is what is most important. Restaurants are equipped with the best systems, staff, and regulations and we now have to be the best customers and come equipped with all they ask for.
Top Three Things to Remember When Dining Out:
Social Distance: Remember to stay 6 ft. away from anyone outside of your party, when possible. To help both the customers and the staff during this transition, restaurants may invest in an app like Waitlist Me. Waitlist Me provides staff with easy and effective ways to manage their waitlist and reservations both in Coronavirus and non-pandemic times. Being able to send a text message to a guest when their table is ready so they don’t have to wait inside is a great feature for reducing crowds.
Hygiene, hygiene, and more hygiene! It may be the restaurant’s job to sanitize more frequently and ensure their staff is healthy; but it is your job to always wash your hands, and to check your own health before walking in the doors.
Respect the guidelines put in place by each individual restaurant. Many restaurants are urging guests to wear masks when possible. Some are asking you to please sanitize your hands before entering. And, others have detailed layouts for guests to follow to help prevent exposure. The list goes on, so pay attention and read the signs!
You might look at this list and scoff, but remember, the restaurant may not look the same and the rules might not be the same but the food IS still the same, and that’s really what is important. So if you’re like me and you have a deep admiration for all things food, then get out and support your favorite spot (and all their new quirks) – again, and again, again.
Our new Kiosk Mode feature for the iOS app is the latest in a number of features for making it easier for customers to check themselves in when arriving at a business using Waitlist Me.
Our waitlist widget is a popular option for businesses to add to their websites and allow their customers to themselves from home or their phones. And as more and more businesses began using the web widget page for self check in, we realized there were some additional advantages we could provide by making this feature part of the native app.
In addition to faster data syncing of updates in the number of people currently waiting, Kiosk Mode allows the view to be locked more easily and avoid confusion if the URL of the widget page ended up being changed by a customer by mistake. It also allows for a cleaner view in not having to show the URL and browser controls or play around with browser settings to hide these.
With Kiosk Mode, it is as simple as toggling it on in the Waitlist Me advanced settings, and it is ready to go for customers to use. Leaving the view requires a password, so a customer doesn’t get into the wrong place by mistake.
The display and settings can all be modified on the website in the existing add yourself settings, and there is more information on how these work here: http://www.waitlist.me/features/add-yourself
